“What?”
“I think she wants to say something to you. Before she goes.”
“I’ll be home tomorrow,” he said.
Emma nodded as if he could see her.
“I’d like to see you tomorrow. After your shift,” he said.
She gulped thickly. For some reason, she could almost picture him perfectly in her imagination, standing in the shadows and looking out an open glass door that looked out onto a grayish-pink dawn, his phone pressed to his ear, the familiar somber, intent expression on his face. The coolness of the chain looped around her fingers penetrated her awareness.
“Thank you,” she blurted out. “For the necklace. It wasn’t necessary.”
“I disagree. You deserved an apology,” he said stiffly. Neither of them spoke for a breathless few seconds. “Meet me in the garage tomorrow night. Do you remember the code?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Good night.”
“Good night,” she whispered. She returned the receiver to the cradle very carefully, like she thought the instrument was as fragile as the moment had been.
* * *
Cristina had not rallied the next night, by any means, but she had plateaued. She was certainly no worse. Emma’s shift was relatively uneventful. She saw no sign of Montand, and she was too self-conscious to ask Maureen or Cristina herself if they had news of him. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d even returned.
By the time she left work that night, the formerly cloudy, humid day had cleared. A near-full moon and a star-strewn sky bathed the back drive in soft luminescence. She entered the code to the garage and took that increasingly familiar, heart-knocking trip across the mudroom. The garage was silent when she entered, the lights turned down too low for Montand to be working on his cars or engines.
“Hello?” she called out, her voice echoing off the walls in the wide-open space of the garage. She walked into the path between the two rows of cars. “Are you here?”
Silence. She’d tried to prepare herself for a variety of scenarios that might occur tonight, but hadn’t considered this one. He wasn’t here. Disappointment flooded her. Should she wait for a bit? Perhaps he’d run into a delay traveling back to Chicago?
A scuffling noise at the back of the garage distracted her. Her heart jumped. She heard a door click open and then shut and the sound of shoes on the concrete floor. She saw him coming toward her in the distance, emerging from the shadows at the back of the garage. He wasn’t wearing coveralls this time. She’d been wrong about thinking he was gorgeous.
He was devastating.
“Hello,” he said soberly, approaching her.
“Hi.”
He wore a light blue and white button-down shirt and jeans, but it was what he did to the garments that left her tongue-tied. She could see his body more clearly when he wasn’t sitting at a table or wearing the coveralls. His waist and abdomen were leaner than she’d thought, his shoulders and chest even more powerful looking. He wasn’t like some of the guys she’d seen at the gym who lifted weights constantly with thick necks and muscles bulging all over the place. Instead, he was perfectly proportioned, his strength apparent in every line of his long, fit body. She recalled how hard he’d felt pressed against her, how solid.
He came to a halt several feet away from her.
You look . . .” she faded off, realizing she was about to make a fool of herself by blurting out how amazing he appeared. “You look taller without your coveralls,” she finished lamely.
There was a scruff on his jaw tonight, but the goatee was still absent. The whiskers highlighted his mouth almost as well as the goatee had. Or maybe it was just that she couldn’t stop looking at his lips and remembering what they’d felt like on her own. His thick hair was finger-combed back from his forehead. His eyes looked especially light in the shadows as they lowered over her.
“You look beautiful,” he said. She blinked in surprise. He said what she’d been thinking about him so effortlessly. Plus, she wasn’t used to his complimenting her. It packed a punch. He finished a perusal that left her feeling extra warm, and met her stare. “I like that color on you.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, glad she’d settled on the new blouse. It was a pinkish, apricot color and much more feminine than her usual clothes. Even she—who was normally very severe on her appearance—thought it did good things for her skin and eyes. A gleam of amusement and something else—was it pleasure?—entered his gaze.
“I like your tomboy look, but this suits you even better. You should dress up more often,” he said.
“I’m not dressed up,” she said, feeling a little prickly that everyone kept seeing through her so easily. Her heart started to thump erratically. His expression took on a bland cast and he nodded quickly as if to say, of course not.
“Are you teasing me?” she asked incredulously after a second, seeing the lingering trace of humor in his face. It seemed so uncharacteristic of him, she couldn’t quite be sure.
His eyebrows went up. “Maybe we’re both acting a little out of character tonight.”